ADALTIM — Algorithms and Impact DAta Lake for Transformative Impact Measurement — was created to respond to this challenge. Led by Triadi, a spin-off of the Politecnico di Milano, ADALTIM is among the projects funded by the European Union through the ESF-2024-SOC-IMP Call for Proposals, under the Employment and Social Innovation strand of the European Social Fund Plus.
Why Impact Measurement Needs to Change
The Call aims to develop innovative solutions to measure, manage and scale up social impact performance among companies and organisations capitalised by the impact investing sector. The growth of this sector is highly dependent on access to comparable, verifiable and transparently measured data on the long-term value generated by social purpose organisations or by profit entities transitioning towards the integration of social or environmental outcomes alongside economic ones.
Ensuring integrity in the measurement and management of social impact is key to overcoming the limits of traditional ESG ratings and to accountably establish an Impact Rating system. A growing social impact investing market — a backbone of a healthy Social Economy — contributes to the realisation of the EU Pillar of Social Rights, particularly across key policy priorities including employment and skills, labour markets and labour mobility, social protection and active inclusion, and working conditions.
A Strong European Consortium
Since its formal kick-off on 12 May 2025, ADALTIM has been implemented by a consortium of 17 partners from 5 European countries (Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium). The project is coordinated by Triadi, spin-off of the Tiresia Research Centre of the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, directed by Professor Mario Calderini. Consortium partners bring together a wide array of complementary competences. They include:
- Sector-lead research institutions such as Tiresia Research Centre (Politecnico di Milano), IE Universidad, Politecnico di Torino, Human Foundation, Do and Think Tank per l’innovazione sociale; Cottino Social Impact Campus.
- Investors and network organisations from the social impact economy: Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo; Fondazione Social Venture Giordano Dell’Amore; Fondazione Opes Lcef onlus; Fondazione Giovanni e Annamaria Cottino; SEFEA Impact SGR; Phitrust Partenaires; Three Hills; Phenix Capital Group; Diesis Network.
- External assurance partners such as Impact Europe and Copenhagen Business School and technical Associated partners such as Generation Impact Global and Legance Avvocati Associati.
This diversity reflects ADALTIM’s ambition to build a robust, market-ready solution grounded in research, practice, and investment experience.
From Challenge to Solution
ADALTIM represents the structural response to the challenge launched by Brussels.
The aim of the project is to develop an independent impact rating model and to establish a new company that, through a dedicated impact rating platform built on this model, will deliver advanced impact rating services to the market. The platform will rely on innovative and technology-assisted measurement algorithms. It will help purpose-oriented organisations to portray their full value both on social and economic levels, and it will equip impact investors with data to facilitate deal-sourcing of the most relevant and impactful companies and with tools to more effectively manage and assess impact-oriented portfolios.
“ADALTIM stems from a simple but radical belief: without solid and shared measurement, impact risks to remain a mere promise”, says Mario Calderini. “Today we have the opportunity – and the responsibility – to build an infrastructure that makes impact readable, comparable and central to decision-making. It is a necessary step toward an economy that does not only measure how much it produces, but also how much it transforms”.
Professor Mario Calderini, Director of the Tiresia Research Centre at Politecnico di Milano and co-founder of Triadi, further explains the vision and objectives of the project in this dedicated interview. A press release published on the occasion of ADALTIM’s official kick-off in May 2025 is also available for further reading here.